Compound semiconductor materials are of great importance for the production of, for example, light-emitting diodes (LEDs). For the production of such LEDs, suitable layer sequences are grown onto a growth substrate. The growth substrate used is, for example, a GaAs substrate. If, however, an AlInGaP semiconductor layer sequence is grown pseudomorphically onto such a GaAs growth substrate, the LEDs so produced, as a result of the band profile at short wavelengths in the range of about 530 to 590 nm, have a potential well of only shallow depth, with the result that disadvantageously high internal efficiency losses can occur as a result of a charge carrier excess.
The growth substrates used for metamorphic AlInGaP semiconductor layer sequences are, for example, GaAs or GaP growth substrates. However, as a result of tensile strains between, for example, a GaAs growth substrate and a semiconductor layer sequence, the active layer of the semiconductor layer sequence cannot be produced with sufficiently good crystal quality. To achieve significantly higher crystal quality it is possible to use, for example, GaP substrates, but a disadvantage is that such substrates are obtainable only in small wafer sizes and at high prices.
A problem is to define a method of producing a semiconductor chip that can be implemented in an economical way, while at the same time a semiconductor layer stack having high crystal quality is produced. A further problem is to define a semiconductor chip that exhibits layers grown with high quality and that can be produced economically and in a wafer composite.